Day 31 – February 15, 2011 – Cruising the New Zealand fjords

This morning we woke to cloudy skies which worried us since we were headed towards the fjords.  By the time we reached the first fiord, Dusky Sound, the clouds were lying out to sea and we had beautiful blue skies.  A little bit of wind made standing on the top deck a bit of a challenge. 

We spent about 30 minutes in Dusky Sound and then made our way to Doubtful Fjiord.

Jan got a badly needed hair color and cut during the afternoon, but the windows in the salon allowed for nice viewing of the scenery.

Just as the ship was entering Milford sound, Jan finished and went to see if Fred recognized her.  After 30 days of sun, wind and hard water on the ship, Jan’s hair was very blonde and desperately needed help.  Carmen, in the salon, had looked at Jan’s hair when we first got on the ship.  She suggested that Jan go darker with fewer highlights so we tried it.   It was quite a dramatic change but I like it and so does Fred.  It is much darker than I usually go and the highlights are just around the top and face and they are very, very light – probably close to white.  But they are not heavy so it looks like highlights rather than white hair.  It will take about 7 days for the hair to be the color it should be but it is fun to look different for a while and I think I might keep it this way for awhile.

Lunch was Mongolian Fire & Ice where you could chose your ingredients for a stir-fry and they would cook it for you and bring it to your table.  The wind had come up and they had to take down the umbrellas before they started tumbling around.

Milford Sound was beautiful.  Clear blue skies with light winds made the sailing smooth.  Fred and Jan saw most of it from the Observation Lounge out of the wind.  Later friends said that it wasn’t that bad as the sun had warmed up the air and the winds had died down a little.

Evening found us in the Observation Lounge with Tom, Martha, Jan and Mike.  We enjoyed cocktails and then headed down to Compass Rose for dinner.  Sylvester found us a nice table for 6 and enjoyed a nice dinner.  Entertainment for the evening was a concert pianist, Van-Anh Nguyen, a beautiful Vietnamese-Australian pianist.  It was her first time performing on a cruise ship and by that time in the evening we definitely had some swell as we were now in the Tasman Sea.  When Jamie announced her, he told us she was having a bit of a challenge.

She played beautifully and apologized for sitting down when she talked to tell us what she was going to play but she was having trouble standing up.  As she left the stage after the performance, she was holding her stomach so I think she was a bit sea sick.  You could not tell by her performance that anything was wrong and we enjoyed the evening